A Meeting
by Zenchibi
Summary: A meeting with Gaara of the Sand leaves Sakura a little unsure of herself. (Gaasaku)
1. Glimpse

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the characters.

A Meeting

Chapter 1

Sakura was traveling alone. Well…almost alone. Her medical training with the Fifth was proceeding quickly, even extending past just healing wounds and moving to attacks. She only hoped that this would help her when she in a battle.

"Speaking of which," she said to herself. Looking over her shoulder she saw her charge for the day. The young boy was trying to hide from her again. She was really sick of him trying to sneak off on her.

She called out over her shoulder, "Come out Konohamaru, I can see you hiding."

"Gah! Stupid witch! How did you see me?" Konohamaru shouted back.

Sakura slowed her pace again. She was no longer fazed by the boy's constant insults, or his attempts to sneak off away from her. She used to lose control and the beat the child terribly. Now, she learned to deal with her anger.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Konohamaru was in quite a predicament. Though he was used to hiding in trees, even upside down sometimes, he didn't like it when he was tried and being held over a large fire. The first time he saw it, he didn't believe how fast Sakura was able to coax such a large fire in such a short time.

Sakura sat up in the branch, catching up on some reading. She would let him sweat a little more, then let him out. She always did, but she hadn't done this so many times that he had caught on to that yet.

"Please let me down! I'll never call you a witch again! I promise!"

Sakura decided to let him up, his whining was starting to wear off as satisfaction, and just becoming annoying. She started to untie the rope to let him up.

"NO! Don't kill me! Please!"

The rope was now untied, and she was holding it tightly.

"Oh shut up! I'm not going to kill you. Hold on, stop shaking, I'm trying to get you-"

The rope slipped from hand. She could see that the boy was falling. He seemed to be falling in slow motion. It was like it was a dream.

_If this is a dream…then he can't really die, _thought Sakura. But she knew this wasn't a dream. Konohamaru was really falling. He was really about to die. There wasn't a thing that she could do to stop him.

But he did stop. She drew in a breath, and everything snapped back to normal time. Sakura looked further down, past Konohamaru, and down to what looked like a part of a beach. Her charge was resting above the fire on a bed of sand.

"I didn't think you would be the type to try and kill anyone."

Sakura looked up, didn't see anyone. A sigh.

"Over here."

Sakura turned around. She found herself face to face with Gaara of the Sand.

"AHHHH!"

She awoke on the ground. She could feel several large bruises on her side, a few on her arm; she had obviously had a hard fall from…somewhere. She turned on to her back with a groan. She opened her eyes, and looked into the eyes of someone else. She reached up, as if to ask him for a hand up, then turned and hit in the side of the face.

"Konohamaru! What's your problem!"

"Huh? I don't understand," Konohamaru seemed sincerely confused.

"You pushed me out of that tree after I let you up, didn't you?"

"No! The weird dude came up behind you upside down, and you screamed and you then you fell, and then you weren't moving and I was on this beach thing this whole time and-"

"Shut up!" Sakura interjected. She had a throbbing headache and her side hurt terribly. She could barely make sense of what Konohamaru was talking about anyway. Something about a weird person…upside down? It made no sense. But she did remember eyes…jade eyes. With black all around them. But she knew the only person with eyes like that was…no it couldn't be. He hadn't been around in…more then a year, not since the chuunin exam.

No. It couldn't be him. Could it?


	2. Meeting

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the characters.

A Meeting

Chapter 2

Sakura was finished her duties for the day.

_What a great life, _she thought,_ the days I'm not working my ass off with the Fifth, I'm babysitting the "honored grandson" of some dead guy. Honored brat is more like it._

She had to admit that she did enjoy being with the Hokage, though. And even if Konohamaru was annoying, he reminded her of Naruto, and she was comforted by that.

She was on her way home at this time, it was late and she was tired. She was still wondering about what she had seen earlier. She was so preoccupied by her thoughts, she didn't even realize where she was headed. She looked up and around, finding herself not at, or even near, her house, but at the Ichiraku Ramen. She looked fondly at the place she had been forced to eat at so many times, and a faint smile crossed her face. Then, she turned and walked home.

"Sakura! You're home late," Her mother pulled her inside hurriedly, obviously insane with worry, not noticing Sakura wince as her bruised arm got gripped tightly.

"Well, I want a full explanation, Sakura."

"Not now, Mom. I'm too tired to explain right now."

"I don't care if you spent three full nights awake and will die if you don't spend another minute standing, you will tell me where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing."

Sakura rolled her eyes. Her mother had always been very protective of her 'little girl'. Sakura felt like screaming at her mother, could envision herself giving the well thought out speech that she had dreamed up, starting with, "I am 14 years old and a trained shinobi, I don't see why your so concerned about me."

But, her life never fit her dreams, so she just explained an abridged version of her tale, excluding her torture and near murder of Konohamaru, and the person she thought she saw.

"Well, Sakura, that's all well and good, but because you were still home late, you are grounded for the next two weeks!"

"But Mom, I-"

"No buts! My decision is final."

There was no use arguing, all of Sakura's tiffs with her mother ended up with her being punished, and then hearing the phrase, "My decision is final." Instead, Sakura went up to her room and fell asleep; her dreams teased her with flashing images of the eyes she had seen.

The next morning brought pain. Lots of it. Seeming in endless supplies.

"Oh, Sakura," Called her mother, dripping with sweetness, "Its time to get up. You wouldn't want to be late for your training with the Hokage would you?"

_Of course not, _thought Sakura, _who wouldn't want to endure endless hours of trying to perfectly train their chakra control?_

She got up and dressed, had breakfast, then left for the Fifth's office. It was a nice day, and she felt her mood improving just walking along the roads. It was very early in the morning, and hardly anyone was up.

_He would be, _She thought. She quickly reminded herself that she hadn't seen him. It had been a trick. Her eyes were playing games on her. Anything, she just hadn't seen him.

She saw something. A small movement out of the corner of her eye. She stopped to turn and look, but nothing was there. She kept moving, walking slowing, trying to take in everything, so as to make sure she hadn't seen anything. She stopped again, looking to the left, then the right. Seeing nothing, she turned to move on ahead, and there he was. There was Gaara of the Sand standing there. Looking right at her.

"Where is he?"

Sakura was incredibly confused. Not only did she not know who the 'he' Gaara was referring to, but she also couldn't figure out why Gaara was in Konoha, why he wasn't trying to kill her, and why he was talking to her at all.

"I asked you a question. Have you gone deaf?"

She looked around. Maybe, just maybe, there was someone behind her that he was talking to. No such luck.

"Will you answer me or not?"

"I-I don't know who you're talking about."

"Yes, you do."

That was his reply. And she did know. Well, almost. She didn't know which of the two he wanted to know the whereabouts of, but she wasn't going to talk about either one of them.

"Konohamaru? The boy you saved yesterday?" She tried to play innocent. Failed miserably.

"Where is he?" His voice was cold now. She knew what he wanted now.

"He's away on training with Jiraiya. He won't be back for a while," She gave him his answer, now maybe he'd leave her alone.

"Then where is he?" Gaara was obviously impatient. Something was bothering him.

"I don't know. Its not like he would send a post card," Sakura was feeling bold for some reason. But, for some reason, facing up to the person that almost killed Sasuke, Naruto, Lee and herself, she didn't feel afraid.

Gaara was silent, but Sakura guessed he wasn't very happy by both her comment and her tone. She no longer felt bold, she felt like an animal in a cage. Trapped. The glare he gave her was hostile, and she actually took a step back. The sand on the ground that Sakura hadn't even known was there started to shift, as if uncomfortable with its current position. Sakura was terrified. Was he going to kill her? The sand rose, like a cobra about to strike…

"Wait!" her voice was filled with fear, "If you kill me, then you would break the truce between sand and Konoha!"

She squeezed her eyes shut. She prayed that this would work. She prayed that the idea of a war was enough to stop someone who lived only to kill.

_Crap,_ she thought, _the thought is probably the most appealing one you could offer him._

She braced herself for the coming blow. She braced herself for death.

Nothing came.

She opened her eyes carefully. The sand was gone. The threat was gone. Gaara was gone.


	3. Explaination

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of its characters.

A Meeting

Chapter 3

"Tsunade-sama! You'll never believe what just happened!"

"That you were late again and now you have a wild excuse to make up for it?"

"Yes! Well…no. But," Sakura was completely out of breath. After her encounter with Gaara, she ran all the way to the Fifth Hokage's office.

Tsunade shook her head, "Honestly Sakura, you're getting to be more like Kakashi."

Sakura was fuming, "NO! I actually have a reason-"

"Let me guess," said her mentor, her voice over flowing with sarcasm, "Gaara of the Sand attacked you."

"Yes!" Exclaimed Sakura.

The Fifth eyed her suspiciously, "You're telling me, that Gaara of the Sand, the boy that almost killed you're team, then came back to save Lee, came back from Sand after more then a year, and attacked you?"

"Yes!" Sakura could see it was a sincere question, not just an accusation.

"Sakura," The Fifth looked at her, "are you feeling well?"

Sakura looked at the Hokage with a complete look of helplessness. If the Fifth didn't believe her, who would?

"Maybe you should go home and rest today," suggested Tsunade.

"I'm fine! I…Its just…I really saw him!" The words were jumbled in her head. She couldn't explain what Gaara would be doing there, and…

_He saved Lee? Not important. Focus, Sakura, Focus!_

The Fifth looked at the young girl whom she had been training since her other team mates had left.

"Yes Sakura," The Fifth was in a particularly poor mood. Not only did she have a lot of paper work to catch up on, but her apprentice was now making wild excuses for being late, one thing she could not tolerate.

"I bet you saw Sasuke on your way over, too."

That struck something. Tsunade saw Sakura visibly slump.

"May I be excused for a moment," replied Sakura with her head down.

"Yes, you may," Said the Fifth. She knew she may have gone too far, but she wasn't about to apologize.

The Hokage watched Sakura leave the office and close the door. She could hear the barely stifled cries of her student. Trying to ignore the sound, she looked back at some of her papers. There was one she saw sticking out that caught her eye. It was a message from The Kazekage.

Hokage-sama,

I would like to inform you that Gaara of the Sand has gone on another "vacation". We think it has something to do with the fox boy. We will not take responsibility for his actions, he is acting alone. Any damage he inflicts is not of our concern, or a threat to the truce.

-Kazekage

Tsunade listened to Sakura crying in the hall, then looked back at the message.

_Oh shit…_ She thought.


	4. Thoughts and Rumors

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of its characters

A Meeting

Chapter 4

"Sakura?"

"Huh?" Sakura looked up from a book she had been reading to her mother.

"Sakura, I've already called you three times for dinner, what were you doing that was so important that you wouldn't come down?"

"I…was reading," Sakura hated to lie to her mother, so she decided to go with only half of one. If she told her mother that she had been attacked by Gaara, she would probably react the same way that Tsunade had.

"Well, come down and eat. You wouldn't want your food to get cold, would you?"

Sakura almost got up, but then decided otherwise, "I'm not hungry."

_Another lie, I'm on a roll._

"Okay, but if you do find your appetite, come on down."

After the door to her room was shut, she sat for a time, her thoughts as her companions. She could hear her mother and father chatting faintly, probably about her, but she didn't care right now whether or not they thought she was starving herself. Her thoughts were on what had happened in the early morning.

She wondered about everything. What if Gaara had killed her? What if Gaara didn't believe her when she said she didn't know where Naruto was? Why did care about Naruto's location?

What if he came back?

Sakura was obsessing over this particular thought. If he came back, there was no telling what he might do. He could finally decide that, the truce be damned, he would kill her, or at least try. He was more then capable.

Or had she really done enough in training with the Fifth to fend him off? She figured there was one way to find out, and she wasn't insane enough to try.

And what if he found out, somehow, that she had lied to him. She had just received a postcard from mist country, where he was apparently spending the month, telling her everything short of a detailed schedule of his daily routines. Naruto was apparently working on some new technique to help Konohamaru beat the "closet pervert." She could only imagine what kind of perverted jutsu he was coming up with the author of Icha-Icha Paradise. How he had fit all of this on a single postcard was mystery to her still.

_Maybe, He'll leave me alone if I tell him where Naruto is…_She thought. _But that would put Naruto in possible danger. Or, maybe he's already left…Yeah, when pigs fly._

She couldn't take any more sitting and not doing anything though. She felt a sudden need to take action. Maybe go out and find him! She could feel her self confidence rising, with leaps and bounds and mighty strides! Yes, she would go out and give that no good rotten Gaara a piece of her mind!

…then a loud tap came at her window, startled her, and she fainted dead away.

When she came to, the tapping was still there. She stood up in a bit of a huff, and looked over. There, on her ledge, tapping on her window, was her favorite child to spend time with, Konohamaru.

She stormed over and threw open her window, causing Konohamara to lose his balance and almost fall. After he was alright, she gave him her best death glare.

"What do you want?"

"I came to see if the rumors are true," He was annoyingly chipper. Konohamaru was one of the kids in the academy that loved rumors.

"What rumor?" She guessed it was something to do with the Fifth. As her apprentice, whenever Konohamaru went to find something out about her, he always went to Sakura.

Konohamaru's excitement was hardly contained, "That you saw Gaara of the Sand!"

Sakura looked at him in shock, no one had been around when she saw him, and all, Gaara wasn't that stupid. Some what insane, perhaps, but not stupid.

She shook off her originally surprise, and answered simply, "Yes I did. About a year and a half ago at the Chuunin exam."

"No! One of the kids at the academy," It was the usual line.

_And now the mindless rambling._

"Said that he saw you and a guy with sand all around him and big gourd with the marking of Sand ninja talking with you this morning," A first hand account from somebody, that was a new one.

"I asked around, and people said the only person like that ever was Gaara of the Sand!" Konohamaru was incredibly happy with himself. Sakura had always been able before to explain that every rumor before was just nonsense, but this was not only true, but a perfect description of what happened in their early 'conversation'.

Konohamaru wasn't done quite yet. He opened his wide eyes wider, and said, "And then, my friend said that he saw Gaara attack you! Well, almost, but right before he did, Gaara disappeared!"

An exact description of what happened. At least, how Sakura thought it happened, she had her eyes shut for the last few moments, after all.

"Well, is it true?"

Sakura looked back at Konohamaru. She started to say something, paused, then, trying to act nonchalant, stated, "No, don't be ridiculous. Why would Gaara of the Sand be here, in Konoha?"

Konohamaru looked like she had just taken the physical manifestation of his spirits and squashed them with a ten ton boulder.

"So…you didn't see Gaara of the Sand?"

"No, I did not."

"Oh," Said Konohamaru, trying to feign the fact that he was okay with that. He looked like a kid that has just been told quite rudely that Santa Claus doesn't exist, "okay then."

Konohamaru exited through the window, leaving Sakura with only her thoughts once more.

* * *

Well, just wanted to say I may or may not be able to update for a short period of time. Thanks for positve reviews, especially as this is my first Fanfic. Many thanks to scorpion05, who gave me the idea for the Santa line. 


	5. Lies and Truth

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the characters.

A Meeting

Chapter 5

Sakura was feeling down. She couldn't understand why, but she knew the reason. She thought she would be able to do something against Gaara, and instead she cowered in her little shell like a frightened hermit crab. Had she been training with the Fifth for nothing?

Even her excellent rationalization skills failed her.

_It was _Gaara of the Sand…_Not even Neji, the Hyuuga genies, would be able to beat him._

…But thinking like that just made her think of how weak she was, and that was what she was trying to avoid thinking.

She heard her mother calling her, "well, what ever she wants, I can just lie. I've already used that approach against her, a psycho killer, and a little kid."

She headed down to see what ailment of body dimorphia her mother would diagnose her with. To her surprise, she saw Tsunade sitting next to her mother drinking a cup of sake.

"Sakura," her Mother asked in a concerned tone, "Hokage-sama has just informed me that you said that you saw an old…acquaintance…this morning."

Sakura looked from her mother to the Fifth, to her mother again.

The Fifth looked at Sakura, and seeing the girl speechless, answered for her, "Gaara of the Sand."

The Fifth downed another cup of sake, and with the alcohol in her blood as a back up to keep herself talking, said, "Sakura, we have reason to believe that Gaara is in town looking for Naruto."

Sakura just stared with wide eyes at nothing in particular. The Fifth helped herself to another cup of sake. And another. And another.

After she was fairly drunk, and now in quite a good mood, she started laughing, "I'm sorry. hic But 'reason to believe' is an undershtatement. I got a fucking letter form the Kaze -hic Kaze-hic Kaze-Hic…Kazekage," With that she pulled out the said letter and slammed it, rather hard, on the table.

Sakura walked over and took the letter.

"Um…Mom?"

"Yes Sakura?"

"I'm going to take Hokage-sama home now."

"Why don't you do that Sakura," Sakura's mother was looking with disgust at the Hokage, now passed out on the table.

Sakura walked through the dark, heading to Tsunade's office, which had a cot in it for Tsunade to sleep off her hangovers.

_Well, _Sakura thought, _No training tomorrow._

Sakura had only not had training once on account of this reason, after the Fifth had had a particularly bad evening of gambling.

As she walked, she thought she heard something. She looked back, and through the night she was able to just make out a rock in the middle of the road.

"Konohamaru, even if the rock disguise look just like a real rock, things like that don't appear in the middle of the road."

"Ha ha! Gotcha!" Sakura felt the scroll she was had been holding snatched from her grasp.

"Hey," She yelled, shifting the Fifth's arm so that she was easier to carry, "don't read that!"

Konohamaru paid no attention to her, "Where's this from? What's it say? Dang, it's too dark to read it."

She could hear something in the darkness, and a moment later she could see a candle was lit.

"Wow! This is all the way from Sand" He exclaimed, "Let's see, 'Hokage…Gaara…vacation…fox boy…"

Sakura sighed; now that there was no way she deny the fact that she had seen him from Konohamaru, she knew she would be hearing rumors all around town about Gaara.

"So I did see you talking to Gaara!"

"What? I thought you said it was your friend that had seen something."

"Well, I didn't want you to think I was following you or something. You already see me whenever you don't have training."

_Don't remind me, _Sakura's side still hurt from the fall she had had.

"So, is that why he came after you? To find out where somebody was?"

"Yes."

Sakura looked around, looking for who had answered, fearing the worst. Sure enough, on the tree right next to them, hanging upside down, exactly where and exactly how he had been when she first met him before the chuunin exam, was Gaara.

* * *

Duh duh duh!Well, another chapter. I think I might slow down for a little bit, I still don't have any idea how long I'm going to make this, or where exactly I'm going to go. Its more of a journey then a destination. Meh...  
Oh, and does anyonethink my chapters are too short. Not that I'm thinking about changing it ever, but opinions are welcomed.


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